Why the war in Ukraine will continue

Guy Mettan,* Geneva

(25 April 2025) After Donald Trump’s peace offer to Russia caused turmoil in a warmongering Europe and raised hopes in the rest of the world, it is now stalling. The reason is simple: too many players, starting with the Ukrainians, the Europeans and the American warmongers, have an interest in the war to continue. Even if Trump and Putin were to reach an agreement and a temporary ceasefire were to be declared, they would not really end the hostilities. At least not for the time being.

A sober and dispassionate assessment of the current military, political and diplomatic realities leaves little room for optimism.

On the Ukrainian side, the will for peace is zero. Only the ordinary people and the conscripted soldiers want an end to the war. But their opinion is not sought. Those in favour of dialogue and a negotiated peace have been banned or imprisoned. The nationalist circles close to Zelensky and the well-heeled bourgeoisie who drive Porsche Cayenne and Tesla in our cities have no interest in this. They have been living for three years at the expense of the West, which tirelessly supplies military equipment, trains troops, coordinates their attacks (see the latest revelations in the “New York Times”), finances fundraising trips abroad and pays for the difficult end of the month with billions of dollars.

So, there is no reason to interrupt this continuous flow of favours. Even more so since, in the event of a peace agreement, elections would have to be organised, which they would be in danger of losing. Since the Kiev regime decided in April 2022 to break off negotiations with Russia, and if Russia’s territorial gains and the pressure from Donald Trump for genuine negotiations can be contained, Kiev has no objective reason to want peace. Furthermore, on the ground, Ukraine has done everything in its power to sabotage the hard-won agreements by continuing to bomb Russian energy targets.

On the European side, there is also a mood for war. All the ruling political parties are competing in the warmongering, with the most extreme militarists in the north and east – Scandinavia, Denmark, the Baltic states and Poland – and the more moderate ones in the centre and south, except for the United Kingdom in the west of the continent, which is gripped by militarism fever. Only Hungary and Slovakia are exceptions. But they carry little weight. The population has as little say as in Ukraine, where opponents of the war are banished to the opposition or instructed to change their minds when they come to power. See Austria, the Netherlands or Italy.

The differences of opinion on the war are therefore mere cosmetic – whether there are more or fewer sanctions, arms deliveries and unconditionally donated billions. But they do not affect the real core. And they will always remain marginal, because European politicians need the war to stay in power: the conflict – and Donald Trump’s statements – have launched or revived the careers of Macron, Merz, Starmer, von der Leyen, Mette Frederiksen and Donald Tusk. They need the big bad Russian and, for the past two months, the big bad Trump too much to consolidate their shaky power and make people forget their unpopularity and domestic difficulties.

The European ruling class is also living in a complete fantasy world. On the one hand, it is offended at having been excluded from the negotiations, but on the other hand, it refuses to talk to Putin. Where is the logic? They also refuse to recognise the profound implications of the conflict, the security concerns that led the Russians to start their defensive war against NATO’s advance and the nuclearisation of Ukraine. And it continues to live under the illusion that the very brave and heroic Ukrainians will be able to defeat the Russian bear. As long as the European leadership fails to understand that Europe’s security cannot be guaranteed at the expense of Russia’s security, and that Europe has more to lose from a devastating defeat of Ukraine than from a supposed victory of Russia, there can be no path to peace.

After all, Russia immediately seized the olive branch offered by the Trump administration, the first of its kind in fifteen years of continuous deterioration in American Russian relations. But it remains very cautious because it has lost all trust in the West’s word. The 1991 promise not to expand NATO eastward was broken.

Most of the strategic security agreements signed by the US have been unilaterally terminated by the Americans: the ABM Treaty in 2002, the Open Skies Treaty, and the INF Treaty in 2018. The breach of the latter directly paved the way for Ukraine’s nuclear armament. Russia then suspended the last remaining strategic agreement, New START, which was due to expire next year anyway.

Similarly, the UN-recognised Minsk Agreements of 2015 were not implemented by Ukraine or by France and Germany, which had guaranteed them. They were even used to enable Ukraine to rearm, as François Hollande and Angela Merkel themselves admitted.

The way the United States withdrew from the JCPOA agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme after its laborious signing in 2015 also does not inspire confidence. How can we believe in Western integrity under these circumstances? Isn’t the general ceasefire desired by Trump and set as a precondition for peace negotiations just another manoeuvre to confuse Russia and allow NATO/Kiev armies to recover before going back on the offensive?

From Russia’s point of view, the West’s promises are therefore worthless. That is why Putin is demanding concrete gestures and signs of goodwill before making a binding commitment. And he wants negotiations to take place first to establish the general framework for a comprehensive peace before a general ceasefire is agreed. He knows very well that if a temporary ceasefire is agreed and the planned negotiations fail (which is certain to happen, as Ukraine is unwilling to compromise under the current circumstances), Russia will be blamed for all the evils and ostracized by the nations if hostilities resume (even if the resumption is initiated by the Ukrainians).

Finally, the fact that the Russian armies are slowly but surely advancing is also preventing the Russians from negotiating, even if this is not the decisive factor.

The US is also divided. While Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are in favour of a negotiated solution, this is not true of all Republicans: Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Security Advisor Michael Waltz and Senator Lindsey Graham are avowed Russophobes who have the support of the Democrats. Donald Trump is also a man in a hurry. However, he will not achieve the desired results within the deadlines he has unwisely set himself. It is becoming apparent that even a temporary ceasefire in the bombing of energy targets and a limited agreement on shipping in the Black Sea have proved very difficult to implement in practice.

Therefore, a resurgence of the war, support for Ukraine and economic sanctions against Russia cannot be ruled out. Second hypothesis: The US continues bilateral talks and reaches an agreement limited to Russia, under which it resumes diplomatic and economic relations with Russia while allowing Ukraine to continue the war with European help. In both cases, the war continues.

Conclusion: Since the Russians will not back down, as this is an existential threat to them, and the Ukrainian and European leadership are dependent on the war to remain in power – as is Netanyahu with his war in Palestine – the development of the situation on the ground will be decisive.

In other words, the war will decide on peace. If the Ukrainians are forced to give in, their supporters will finally be forced to accept reality and end the fighting on Russia’s terms. If, on the contrary, they manage to resist, for example by sending in European ground troops, Russia would use its tactical nuclear missiles. In either case, Europe will be the loser.

Choose the option that seems least bad to you.

* Guy Mettan (1956) is a political scientist, freelance journalist, and book author. He began his journalistic career in 1980 at the “Tribune de Genève” and was its director and editor-in-chief from 1992 to 1998. From 1997 to 2020, he was director of the “Club Suisse de la Presse” in Geneva. Guy Mettan has been a member of the Geneva Cantonal Parliament for 20 years.

(Translation “Swiss Standpoint”)